I have to admit, I debated this for the Hall of Fame, that’s how much I love this movie. THE HOWLING is my favorite werewolf movie of all time, but I also have a softer spot than most for the overall franchise. That’s really out of happenstance more than any kind of loyalty, because THE HOWLING is an anthology series, the movies are not connected save for the fact that they are about werewolves, except for a last minute attempt by the seventh film to tie things together, which we don’t really need to talk about. Don’t get me wrong, this is a franchise with serious ups and downs, but there are a few gems in there. HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS is far and away my favorite of the sequels. In fact, it is one of my favorite direct-to-video movies of all time.
From the get-go, even for an unconnected franchise, this one is different. Amazingly, this is the first HOWLING film to even attempt to tackle to concept of the tortured werewolf (the closest before this were the misunderstood werewolves of HOWLING III) and finally gives the series a Larry Talbot figure in our hero, Ian. He is introduced very much like David Banner in the INCREDIBLE HULK TV series, a drifter just going from place to place, unable to settle down. Brendan Hughes’ performance is subtle and somber and he sells the tortured hero very well.
I am a lover of carnival horror, too. If you throw in a fair, I’m going to eat it up, so it’s a huge plus for me that the entire film revolves around a traveling carnival. There’s something about this combination of late-night monster movie with overt Ray Bradbury aesthetics that I earnestly, deeply love.
The other major standout here is that HOWLING VI is, in addition to werewolves, a vampire movie. The match-up between the two monsters was smartly marketed directly on the poster, and the movie surprisingly delivers wholeheartedly on the premise. One creature is the protagonist of the film, the other is the antagonist. It’s a perfect fit.
If I’m going to have one complaint about this movie, it’s that the best sequel gives us the worst looking werewolf. I understand why, granted. Ian is our hero, it makes sense that this would be the first HOWLING to go for a more Wolf Man approach, but it’s still rough around the edges. The movie makes up for it though, because that vampire makeup is SO good. I’m not kidding when I say HOWLING VI has one of the coolest vampires to ever hit the screen.
There are themes of exploitation, exoticism, xenophobia, mob mentality, and to have that all wrapped up in a dusty, rural, gory monster mash, it delivers everything you could possibly want out of this kind of movie and then some. So much better than I think most people would possibly expect.